The missing

I'm sure I'm not the only person who's been wondering what happened to all those people who stayed behind in Galveston during Ike.

As the hurricane closed in, authorities estimated that 90,000 people ignored evacuation orders along the Gulf Coast. Post-storm rescuers in Galveston and the peninsula removed about 3,500 people, but another 6,000 refused to leave.

Nobody is suggesting that tens of thousands died, but determining what happened to those unaccounted for is a painstaking task that could leave survivors wondering for months or years to come.

Authorities concede that at least some of those who haven't turned up could have been washed out to sea, as at least one woman on the peninsula apparently was, and that other bodies might still be found.

"I'm not Pollyana. I think we will find some," said Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county's highest-ranking elected official.

Let's keep some numbers straight first. "Along the Texas Coast" is very much not the same as "on Galveston Island and/or Bolivar Peninsula". If we're talking about people who may have been "washed out to sea" without a trace, I think we have to limit ourselves to the population of the latter. I would therefore disregard that 90,000 figure, as it's counting far more people than it should be.

Having said that, we believe that at least 10,000 people, maybe as many as 20,000, remained in Galveston for the storm. We know that several thousand have been evacuated post-Ike, and that some folks who rode it out are still there now, in some cases finally being evacuated. We don't have a good enough handle on how many people were there to begin with. That will indeed take awhile to determine, and we'll never have more than a best guess. The death toll is still officially at 23.

Officials ask those who have not heard from family and friends who live in the unincorporated areas of Galveston County to report them missing by calling an emergency hot line at 866-898-5723.

Those calling the hot line, set up by Galveston's office of emergency management, should have a description of the missing, address, last time they were in contact with them and plans the person had for the storm.

May God have mercy on them, wherever they are.

UPDATE: Via Houstonist, KTRK has created a message board for those who are searching for people who are missing after Ike.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 18, 2008 to Hurricane Katrina